Energy Independance

It was interesting to hear somebody who has no plan to use great sources of clean energy, like nuclear, tout it in a speech which essentially was a bold faced lie. Yep, that is what you are getting out of the President and his progressive friends in Washington. More on that in a minute.

One of the biggest ongoing issues that creeps up now and then is energy independance. It seems the only time we pay attention to it is when oil prices go up. Then they have hearings on capitol hill, they grill the oil companies, and put on a big dog and pony show. To what end? All so they can look like they are doing something and keep the status quo. As soon as the energy prices naturally start to fall a bit, the public stops the complaining and moves on because they no longer see it as an issue.

The thing with energy is that it has to be addressed. Real solutions have to be implemented by people with the cajones to do it right. That is your standard issue with politicians, they don't want to stand up for anything unless it gets them immediate election returns.

So, how do we go about creating energy independence? Why do we need to do it?

How about we start with the why's first. We import a vast amount of our energy supplies. At least in the forms of oil and natural gas. This obviously adds to the cost of the end product. If we developed it ourselves it would be cheaper. Just a simple rule of economics. Many of the countries we get our oil from don't like us very much. Even if they feign affection. This presents national security implications. Besides, wouldn't it be better to keep all that cash in our own country? Our energy demands as a nation will continue to go up. That is just a natural consequence of an expanding people and a growing nation.

How do we create energy independence? It really is a two pronged approach. All you hear about in the media and the noisemakers is green energy. While I agree that we need to be responsible in our energy development and that fossil fuels won't last forever, I don't buy into the "climate change" hysteria. We have talked about it here before. All the brouhaha continues to be further and further discredited. That being said, we need to fast track and develop the natural resources we have right now and continue to explore and discover more. This will allow us an energy source that is homegrown while we work to develop economically viable energy alternatives. You cannot just cut off one and use government funds and mandates to develop the other. For a good example, look at Spain. For every green job their government funded, the economy lost 2.2 other jobs. That comes out to a net loss of 1.2 jobs.

There are several energy sources we can tap. We have great reserves of oil and natural gas in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. Don't be fooled by all the pictures of polar bears and elk prancing across grasslands. ANWR is like the deserts of Nevada with no plants or animals, just a bunch of ice and snow. It might make the snow fairies mad, but we need to develop it. Governor Palin showed a great use of tapping the resources in Alaska responsibly through the private sector. Not only have they expanded exploration and production for both oil and natural gas, they are in the midst of building a natural gas pipeline to bring all that energy to the rest of us. The environmentalists can complain all they want about pipeline projects decimating the ecology along their paths, but the facts show that life expanded along the current Alaska Oil Pipeline after it was built.

There are responsible ways to drill offshore. We are the best at environmentally safe ways of exploiting our natural resources. We need to free up the offshore areas so we can drill. If the state of California would learn from Alaska and allow more development off the coast, they would have a lot more money coming in instead of getting ready to file bankruptcy in April. You are not talking about rigs right on the beachline a mile off shore. You are talking about platforms several miles offshore. Hardly an eyesore. Plus, we are more responsible than any other country in the world when it comes to energy development. It would be safer for the trees and animals here than exploiting those resources in some third world country with no controls.

There are also great shale reserves in the mountain west. The technology has improved by leaps and bounds and continues to do so allowing us to extract this oil. It is reported that these shale reserves hold more oil than the fields in the middle east. They have also found vast reserves of oil in the upper midwest.

The great thing about tapping all of these sources is that it creates JOBS. It creates long term jobs for people in all sorts of fields. It also decreases the economic cost of energy. Of course, along with the increase in domestic production we also need to increase our refinery capacity so we can eliminate the costly bottle neck between the fields and the consumer.

As I mentioned, we all know that fossil fuels won't last forever. They may last us a couple hundred years or whatever, but we need to have a plan. One of the great sources of renewable and clean energy is nuclear. By ramping up our nuclear production it would once again create jobs, lower the cost of energy, and we would have a continuous supply. There was a great post about nuclear energy and the President's SOTU remarks posted today. It pretty much sums up that little topic mentioned at the beginning of this post. There was also this week some good discussion on Yucca Mountain.

While we wait for the cost of solar power to come down and finding the illusive spot on the earth where it is sunny 24/7 365, we need to use the resources we have been blessed with. They will tell you that it doesn't matter because those sources of energy won't be able to hit the market for like 10 years. That is one of the problems. Somebody needs to step up and say lets get going so we aren't having this same conversation 10 years from now. Also, the reason it takes so long is that the government creates too much red tape and beuacracy to get through, besides all the litigation from the environmentalists to do it. That is why it takes 10 years. For the companies that are just sitting on their leases. Tell them to start producing or you will revoke their lease and sell it to the highest bidder. They did that in Alaska and it worked wonders.

Car companies are working on viable alternatives to gasoline for vehicles. Some of the most promising work has been done with fuel cells. It would be a clean source of fuel. The biggest hurdle to overcome once they design a good cost efficient model, is the need for new types of stations to refuel your vehicle at.

Overall, the energy issue is something that can easily be solved by the free market. Companies are not going to push out a vehicle or product the people are going to hate. They will develop energy resources closer to their biggest consumers if given the opportunity. Other countries such as China seem to recognize this which is why their energy development is going full bore. They are even working with companies to drill oil in the Gulf of Mexico, our backyard.

Remember to keep yourself informed, and don't be afraid to speak out.

Revolving Subjects

I have written a lot about various things the last several weeks. There has been of course some extensive stuff on Progressivism, which can go much deeper and get much more coverage as well, a little bit about various events that have been happening and their impact on our lives, and a little bit about some of my pet subjects, one of those being "climate change."

I would like to get some feedback from the few of you in cyberspace that read my blog. What kind of issues do you think are important to address? What are some things we need to be aware of to protect our future, the future of our children, and our nation?

I think for the next couple weeks I will write on "climate change" and energy independence. I believe at some level the two topics intertwine a little bit.

I have posted via Twitter and Facebook some articles on "climate change", in particular some information regarding the "climategate" scandal. There was a great three part series written on it. You can find them here, here, and here.

Energy independence is something that stretches into several different areas of concern. It not only has the obvious economic and environmental concerns, but national security concerns as well. In today's post i'll give a brief overview and in subsequent posts address each one individually. National Review did post a great article today concerning the national security implications of energy independence.

The most basic thing that people scream about is the cost of energy. Oil prices are high so gasoline and heating prices go up. There aren't enough resources for electricity production so the cost of electricity goes up. Those of us that live in desert areas know how that power bill just sky rockets in the summer months. People always spout off about the evil oil companies and their monopolistic hold on energy. When you look at the actual profit these companies make by percentages, they make far less profit then your local McDonald's. Its a simple function of math and economics that produces the high dollar amount listed as profit. They move a lot of product at a cost relatively higher than a Big Mac.

People in some circles complain about how dirty oil and coal are. They complain about how dirty fossil fuels are in general. Do you think you could keep the environmental impact down with production here where there are some protection laws and the companies work to do it in a clean manner, or in some third world country who could care less about how much waste or damage they cause pulling the resources? Keeping energy development here would better protect the environment.

I'll just touch briefly on the common sense national security argument. Do you think it would be harder for our potential enemies to get funds for their campaign if we weren't giving money to countries who don't necessarily like us?

There are several things that we can do to improve our energy independence that would create benefits in all three of these areas. First, economically we strengthen ourselves by creating new jobs to get the resources we have been blessed with. The money stays in our own country, and because we are producing it, the end cost for the consumer is less. Second, environmentally we safely take the resources ourselves which we can do better than anybody else while at the same time researching and investing in alternative energy resources. You can have a balance. You just can't wreck the entire economy by cutting off your current supply of energy. Even my three year old could explain that to you. I think the national security argument above can stand on its own today.

I believe we should go after the resources we have; oil, natural gas, coal, etc. Force the companies with leases to start pulling the resources, and open up more land and locations to do so. We need to build Nuclear Power Plants. It's the perfect and abundant energy source to take care of our electrical needs. France gets about 80% of their power from nuclear sources. They also lead the world in reprocessing and recycling the spent nuclear material. I think I am going to write my science paper for school on this very subject.

We can be an energy independent nation with some effort and a little bit of common sense.

Remember to keep yourself informed, and don't be afraid to speak out!